


The Little Incident

by DawnlitWaters



Series: Das kleine gelbe auto [3]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Angsty Illya, Car Chases, F/M, Gen, Mountain roads, Napoleon Solo Ships Illya Kuryakin/Gaby Teller, Solo very nearly has an emotional conversation, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-16
Updated: 2018-11-16
Packaged: 2019-08-24 14:58:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16642418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnlitWaters/pseuds/DawnlitWaters
Summary: Not the holiday he had expected, certainly. But quite a satisfactory few days, despite the little incident with the car.





	The Little Incident

_Massa, Italy, 1964_

The first thing Solo wants in the report, the thing to put right at the top, in the heavy, bold typeface, is that he was on _holiday_.

Two week's leave, on the Italian Riviera.

He'd had the car shipped over, because what was the point in even _owning_ a DB4-GT if you didn't take it to Italy with you?

Three days in, and he'd found himself in the back of it, and not in the good way. 

~

“Will you slow down?” he yells, from his cramped position on the back seats. He doesn’t like to raise his voice – he has an image to maintain, after all – but Teller looks like surpassing all previous land-speed records, and the corners are getting sharper.

Gaby snaps something coarse at him over her shoulder, and steers them into another, tighter bend. Illya jams a hand up into the roof, other arm wrapped protectively around the camera on his lap to stop it smashing out through the window.

“Zamedlyaysya radi Boga!”

Gaby shoots a furious, fiery look at Illya, and Solo tightens already-white knuckles on the back of her seat.

“Eyes on the road, Teller!”

Gaby growls, hits the brakes, and turns them through a full hairpin bend.

“You chose this road, Cowboy” she shouts back, revving the engine to pull them up the suddenly steepening ascent.

“It was _direct.”_

“It is _slow_ ” Illya counters, shuffling the camera down to sit between his feet, and pulling his gun from inside his jacket.

“Well the tunnel isn’t finished yet” Solo fires back.

Illya grunts, checks over his gun. Behind them, the unmistakable sounds of tyres and straining engines cut through the darkening evening.

“Idiotskiy amerikanskiy” Illya mutters, darkly, and even Gaby – whose Russian is better, but still nowhere near fluent – snorts in agreement.

~

Two days into his little sojourn by the seaside at Massa, Italy, and Solo had relaxed nicely into the pace of life. He slept well and rose late; ate well and drank deep, spending long, balmy evenings in the bars or at the casinos. Rich men with incomplete art collections pressed drinks upon him; beautiful women with neglectful husbands pressed _themselves_ upon him. He was the apple of all eyes and could say or do no wrong.

Three days in, and he found his mind drifting.

He slept lighter and rose later; lingered longer over his breakfast, catching himself gazing out to sea from his seat on the balcony. The Italian scandal-sheets lay fluttering and forgotten, pinned in the breeze by the coffee pot. Even the prettier members of hotel staff, bobbing and twittering in the periphery, failed to peak his interest.

He looked out to sea, but the glittering water was no more fascinating than the papers or the girls. Instead his mind spooled through reel after reel of internal scenery: New York, Rome, Istanbul, New York, Vienna, London, New York, New York, New York…

He thought of Sanders, hunched and round-shouldered and perpetually scowling, spooning cube after cube of sugar into his tar-black coffee.

He thought of Gaby – light, slim and sun-dappled – twirling, twirling, and twirling, arms poised, back taut and eyes focused, her free leg flicking out and in, out and in, forever in motion in the green freshness of Central Park.

He thought of Illya, tall and imposing in his black dinner jacket and tuxedo trousers, standing awkwardly at the side of the large ballroom, looking the part and yet clearly feeling uncomfortable and out of place.

It had been _quite_ the year.

He remembers Rome like it was yesterday, and the fortnight in Istanbul is seared into his memory brighter than Uncle Rudi’s Technicolour. From there, to days and nights, weeks and months in his home town of New York City: punctuated by the jingle of _Del Floria’s_ shop door, the sound of suppressed gun fire, and the clink of glasses in his apartment in the small hours of the morning.

No one had tried to shoot him yet, in Massa. He’d imagined that fact would be relaxing, or at least a pleasant change. But in reality he felt on edge. Expectant.

_Dear God, he was getting like Peril._

Paranoia. One of many traits learned by living in Soviet Russia, and apparently deliberately cultivated by the KGB. Solo knew the UNCLE psychologists viewed the Russian as a kind of pet project, hopeful that by pulling on the right loose thread they might unravel him entirely: produce a new breakthrough, or at least enough material for a book and some well-reviewed papers.

Solo turned his attention back to his breakfast, coffee cooling rapidly on the table and pastry cornetto untouched. His appetite had deserted him.

The sight of sugar cubes piled in the bowl brought him back to Sanders again.

Sanders, the grouchy CIA handler tasked with keeping an eye on him. Solo’s third handler in as many months, and the only one who had stuck. Who had been impossible to shake, in fact, despite Solo’s best efforts.

_Four more years_ , he considered. _Four more years, until 1968._

_Nineteen sixty-eight_ – he rolled the syllables around on his tongue – the sound of freedom. Proper, infinite freedom. Back to living the American dream in his penthouse apartment, or from a nice little _pied a terre,_ somewhere chic and European.

If they let him, of course. Would his movements still be restricted? Just a larger, more open-plan prison than the one he’d been destined for in Atlanta? He shivered, turned his gaze back out to sea.

There was another way, he supposed.

He thought again of Illya, and Gaby. Still in residence at UNCLE HQ, or maybe off on leave periods of their own. Individually, unless things had progressed _significantly_ in his absence. That seemed unlikely, given the glacial progress of German-Russian relations so far. Besides, Gaby would have contacted him if anything interesting had happened, and a thaw in the perpetual Moscow winter would certainly count as something interesting.

But together or apart, they represented another way, a second option. Something other than drifting around the US or the continent, trying not to steal anything large enough to draw international attention.

Would he stay at UNCLE? _Could_ he? The thought felt… comfortable, in his head. Familiar. Not words he normally associated with himself. It felt like an idea worth investigating: something to try on, take off and try on again. An idea requiring a few strokes of chalk and some adjustment, but not beyond the scope of a skilled tailor. And when it came to ideas, Napoleon Solo was a _very_ skilled tailor indeed.

A third option would be to give in to temptation, of course. Go big, go bold. Stick a finger up at Sanders and the CIA, and all the beleaguered detectives of Europe, and return to his life of crime. _Would they catch him a second time?_

The normal authorities wouldn’t. They’d only _just_ managed it the last time. Sanders was cannier, and he knew Solo’s methods, but even so he had an easier job of ‘catching’ Solo when all he had to do was pull on a leash. Once the leash was gone, would he be quite so efficient?

Besides, the CIA had only interested themselves in his case _after_ he’d been caught – they had quite enough to occupy their time, without directing resources at catching a relapsed art thief.

Gaby and Illya would hardly come after him. Gaby didn’t know a Monet from a Manet and didn’t care to, and however strict Illya’s moral code, he was hardly likely to waste his time on such trivialities. In any case, they were rather more than colleagues these days – hopelessly compromised, in the official lingo – or ‘friends’, in more colloquial terminology.

Which left Waverley, Alexander. The charismatic ‘Number One, Section One’ of UNCLE’s New York operation.

Solo had been underwhelmed, initially. Admittedly the Englishman had pulled some fancy footwork in Rome, and demonstrated considerable foresight in recruiting Gaby, but beyond that Solo had been unimpressed. A good talker, with an insinuating manner, but nothing to Sanders or, from what he’d gleaned, Oleg.

In other words, he’d fallen for it. Hook , line and sinker.

Three days into the Istanbul fiasco – their second mission as a team – and he’d been on the point of complete rebellion. He mistrusted Illya, had revised his good opinion of Gaby, and was planning his escape route. The UNCLE initiative had seemed to him doomed from birth, undermined by Soviet slyness and the air-headed ideas of an untrained agent. And God knows, Solo himself was no poster-boy for rosy-cheeked American heroism.

Ten days in, and he was beginning to smell a rat. A clever rat, with a good suit, tightly rolled umbrella and plummy, well-bred accent.

Lying fully-clothed on crumpled, unwashed sheets, he had been reviewing the events of the last few days – their claustrophobic, sweltering time in non-descript hotel rooms and paltry little guesthouses. His review had brought him to a startling revelation: nothing had happened.

There had been activity – letter drops, reconnaissance, escapes from shadowy-not-quite enemies and the flitting shapes of supposed snipers and hitmen. Emotions running high, firearms wavering on their intended targets and wild accusations; the adrenaline-fuelled paranoia of three spies who, in hindsight, had nothing but shadows and suggestions to spy on.

And nothing had _actually_ happened.

_More matter with less art_ , as Waverley’s – presumably beloved – Shakespeare would say. All Englishmen had an obsession with Shakespeare, and Waverley was nothing if not the archetypical Englishman. Or so he seemed.

Lying on his bunk, watching the laughably ineffective ceiling fan on its slow, tired rotation, Napoleon had frowned in the darkness. _Seemed_ was dangerous. _Seemed_ was exactly their problem.

_More matter, less art_ – exactly what they needed, instead of going round and round ineffectually, like the blades of the ceiling fan. And all at the bidding of an Englishman who let himself get pickpocketed at a party and who, with apparently minimal shame, had lost his star sleeper agent and had to turn to the CIA and KGB for help.

Gaby had warned them, early on. _“He’s no fool, whatever you think of him.”_

But Solo hadn’t listened, because what could she know? Silly little Gaby, who liked to play dress up and who seemed more and more vacuous as the Istanbul ‘mission’ wore on.  

_Seemed_ , again. That wasn’t how he’d felt in Rome.

And then there had been Illya, who was _definitely_ working for the KGB, and who _almost certainly_ had orders to kill Solo if the American did or said anything detrimental to the Russian’s _real_ mission. Whatever that might be.

But lying on his bunk, Solo had begun to wonder. Did any of this seem likely? Any more or less likely than the USA and the USSR teaming up to prevent disaster?

More or less likely than a German, a Russian and an American, running errands at the beck and call of an Englishman?

It was, at best, the start of a convoluted and poor taste bar room joke. At worst, it sounded like the ravings of a mad man. His head had hurt.

But _nothing_ had _actually_ happened.

_Nothing._

He’d marched down to Gaby’s room, as the least immediately terminal of his two options. He’d laid his theory before her. It sounded, as it came out, rather like the theory she’d advanced, several days ago.

When he’d finished, the ballerina-mechanic had folded her arms primly, tipped up her chin, and sworn at him in skin-searing gutter German.

Napoleon had remained silent. Gabby had shifted her weight, one leg to the other; flicked away her fringe with the hauteur of an empress.

_“Oh finally,_ _he gets it.”_

He’d made her go with him to see Peril. Illya could, theoretically, have orders to kill both of them, but Solo felt sure that The Red Peril would still hesitate to pull the trigger on Gaby. He had kept strategically behind her as they knocked on Kuryakin’s door, as they entered the room, and as Gaby – bored, angry, icy – had set out her theory again.

Illya had nodded, slowly.  They’d sat in silence, berating themselves and, for once on that absolute shit-show of a non-mission, not berating each other.

_“A test,”_ she had said, _“a test of our loyalties, our skills, our beliefs. A stress-test.”_

They’d contacted their handler the next day, and found tickets to New York awaiting them on their return to the hotel.

They’d been collected at the airport, bundled in and out of various taxis on the strength of Waverley’s name alone, and finally fetched up at a small, non-descript office building. As they were to learn a few hours later, UNCLE HQ was still under development. Jet-lagged and weary, they’d trudged up the three dingy flights of stairs, letting themselves into the antechamber where a plump, cheery secretary had directed them to wait on an old leather sofa.

They’d made a nice picture, Solo felt sure: Illya, stiff-backed but helplessly folded into the sagging cushions at one end, Gaby elegant and bare-limbed at the other. Solo himself obtusely in the middle between them – entirely by design – and trying to look suave and poised, while sinking deeper into the inevitable embrace of the leather.

The walls around them had been decorated with signage from ‘British Oil’, including Waverley’s old office nameplate. Waverley himself smiled graciously out of several frames, posed at ship launches, employee retirements and contract signings.

Napoleon wondered how much of it – if any – was real.

When they’d been shown through, Waverley had been seated at his desk, reading the London papers and sipping tea with milk. The small room was replete with wingback club armchairs, a cigar-cutter and, Solo had been absurdly annoyed to note, a hefty tome of Shakespeare’s complete works.

_“Ah, yes. Ten days – not bad, you chaps, but hardly inspiring. ‘Could do better’, I’m afraid.”_

Bastard.

It was still difficult, even now, a year later, not to fall for it. The old Etonian tie, the ingratiating smile. The ‘Oh I beg your pardon, was this _your_ country?’ imperialist attitude, to anything from seating arrangements to major political upheavals. Waverley came across as the weak-chinned younger brother of someone important – a man who should have been sent out to waste his inheritance gambling on bear-baiting in some far flung outpost of Empire.

But this was an error, and a grave one.

Solo had read Waverley’s file – repeatedly – and tried to impress upon himself the understanding that _no one_ managed to speak nine languages and run the Hong Kong branch of SIS, without being something rather _extra._

But the understanding would disappear, fading like a dream every time Solo was confronted with the reality of Waverley’s kindly, crinkled smile and irrepressibly Byronic hair-style.

He wondered how far Sanders, or for that matter Oleg, trusted the Englishman. Did they fondly believe themselves superior to the chinless-wonder heading up UNCLE’s operations? Did they imagine he was a convenient if bumbling figurehead, someone they could depose if the need arose?

Solo felt they might be in for a nasty surprise, if that day ever came.

A year of working for him had irrevocably adjusted Solo’s opinion of the man. He was one of few people who could inspire genuine, visceral fear in Napoleon Solo. He didn’t do it often, but he _could_ , and that in itself was terrifying.

One thing was certain. If Solo returned to his old career once his four years were up, Alexander Waverley would be the man who’d come after him. Arguably SIS was busier than both the CIA or KGB – keeping tabs on both their American cousins and Russian adversaries – but Waverley was just eccentric enough to think a side-line in curtailing international art theft was a worthwhile enterprise.

The shriek of seabirds brought Napoleon back sharply to the present. He looked down at his coffee – now stone cold in the cup. He took an experimental bite of the pastry, decided against the rest of it.

But for now, what? Here he was in in Italy, ostensibly sunning himself over breakfast before an evening’s pleasure, and all he could think of was still four years distant, or over 4,000 miles away across the Atlantic.

He went out that evening with an inexplicably heavy heart, and the lingering expectation that someone might, after all, be pointing a gun at him.

When he returned to his suite, two familiar faces were waiting for him.

~

“You cannot be serious.”

Illya remains leaning against the wall, arms folded. He shrugs, wordlessly.

Gaby tuts.

“We thought even _you_ might be grateful.”

Solo removes his jacket, places it carefully on the back of a chair.

“Grateful, for you interrupting my little holiday? Do you have those in the East? Peril?”

Illya doesn’t respond, doesn’t even adjust his expression. It is getting harder to needle him.

Gaby throws up her hands, making and unmaking little doll-like fists.

“Well then, perhaps we will leave you to get shot, hmm?”

It is Solo’s turn to sigh. He looks about the room – he had not been prepared for quite such a swift exit as this new development will probably require. But he likes these clothes, and it would be a pity to leave them.

“And you’re sure it’s them?”

“Their people, yes.”

“Nazi boy-racer is not coming back” Illya adds, with a touch of asperity, as if Solo is questioning his knife skills.

Solo nods, placating. “And Victoria is unlikely to be paying any more social calls.”

“I am sure you will get over it.”

Solo shoots a look at the Russian, but Kuryakin’s bit of mockery is belied by his stony appearance. He looks as dour as usual; he has not even removed his hat.

“But their employees, their associates. Vinciguerra Shipping was a major concern, and with both its leaders dead…”

Gaby tails off. Someone wanted reparation. Yes, he can well imagine they would. Perhaps his choice of Italy was foolish.

“So what is this? What brings both of you over here into the line of fire?”

“We were worried about you” Gaby coos, puckering her mouth, sweetening her voice. Napoleon gives her a look: _don’t be childish_.

“It is extraction. We think they are watching airports for you. But they are only civilians, with hired help. They cannot watch all the roads.”

“None of their neo-Nazi investors?”

The Russian shrugs. This means ‘not that they know of’, and Kuryakin will have been thorough in checking that specific line of enquiry. Teller too, not to mention Waverley.

“Where are we headed?”

“We have safe house. Just over Swiss border, in St Moritz.”

Solo raises his eyebrows.

“Waverley was feeling generous.”

“Clearly.”

~

Which is how, in a roundabout way, he came to be the “Idiotskiy amerikanskiy”, once again wedged into the impractical rear-end of his own car.

Illya grunts with frustration as he winds down the window, nearly wrenching the handle off in the process. He shifts in his seat, feet still bracketing the delicate camera on the floor of the car. Twisting, he manages to lean a little way out.

Gaby takes another corner at an ill-advised speed, and the flow of Russian curses are lost to the wind as Illya is thrown further through the window.

“Don’t fuss – you are too big to fall out” Gaby calls, shifting down with unwarranted aggression.

If the Russian replies, it is lost again. Solo tries to roll over, awkward in the confined space. After several failed attempts, he manages to half sit up, twisting round to peer out of the rear window. He is just in time to connect the sound of gun shots – two – with the sight of their pursuer’s car wobbling, veering and then spinning sideways and impacting the stone wall with a heavy _crunch_.

Illya resettles himself back in the car, carefully puts away his gun. Leans down to retrieve his precious camera from the floor.

“Nice work” Solo allows, and settles as comfortably as he can. In the rear view mirror, he can see Gaby, smiling at nothing.

~

Night has fallen by the time they reach the border. As a concession to the dark, the lack of pursuit vehicle, and her partners’ nerves, Gaby has slowed to a merely nail-biting pace.

The car and its occupants are quiet and content. Solo has finally found a semi-comfortable position, and is attempting to read an Italian paper by the light of his torch, the pages folded double. Illya is calm in the front seat, gazing out the window at the inky blackness and the twinkling towns and villages, floating in their dark alpine ocean.

“This is like driving in Russia” he announces, unbidden.

Solo looks up from his paper; Gaby glances across at him.

“Very dark, very… spread out.”

Gaby nods, smiles; Solo notes it in the rear view mirror.

“It is peaceful here” she says.

Illya hums, doesn’t take his gaze from the window. Solo considers adding that the last time he visited Switzerland, he had stolen a very valuable painting.

He decides against it.

A faint sound starts up behind them, grows quickly louder. An engine, revving fast, approaching at speed. A motorbike, if Solo is any judge.

Something about it makes hairs stand up on the back of his neck.

The others feel it too: Gaby’s focus is sharp out of the windscreen, Illya is reaching for his gun.

Shots sound, thudding into the tarmac beside them.

“Scheisse” Gaby hisses.

“Now, now” Solo tuts, reaches for the Browning stowed under Gaby’s seat.

More shots, thudding into the side of the car: the bullets impact in the drivers’ side door and Gaby narrowly avoids wrenching the wheel as she startles. But she is a professional, and the moment is brief.

The motorbike swings in and out of their tail lights, its front lamp alternately strobing the night outside or dazzling through the glass. More shots, hitting tarmac and rebounding off the car; intended for the tyres.

As the bike pulls closer, Gaby pulls the car hard to the left, trying to force the bike off the road. Silhouetted against the front lights, Solo sees an arm reach out, hears the latch of the drivers’ door. Solo takes a shot through the small back window, and misses, but the rider is distracted. Taking advantage, Gaby elbows the door hard and the metal panel swings out, narrowly missing the rider as he swerves away.

As the road curves left, Gaby is forced to swing wide, and the biker comes in close, one arm reaching for the door again. Across the car, Illya raises the Walther pistol; it’s point blank range but a shot straight past Gaby’s nose. There is an ear-splitting screech and for one fraction of a second Solo thinks the Russian has taken the shot. Then his brain catches up with his ears and categorises the sound as ‘tortured metal’, just in time for his eyes to show him the car door, parted from its hinges and now arcing  away into the night.

“Must be Russian!” he yells, over the increased noise of rushing wind, both engines and the blood pounding in his ears. Illya shoots him an aggrieved frown.

Any remarks he may have made are lost, as both men reach for support as Gaby swings them into the corner. Broadside on, they’re a good target, the rider slowed almost to a stop behind them to take a shot. But Gaby is quick and the night is dark. Shots land harmlessly in the bodywork, and Gaby accelerates them up the straight. The bike’s engine roars to life again, tyres screeching on the hairpin behind them. Illya leans out of the front passenger side once again, and Solo shifts position to take a clear shot through the back window.

Several things happen at once.

Three shots, from the bike. Two _thuds_ into the side of the car; one sudden, sharp _hiss_.

The left side of the car drops suddenly, the front tyre burst and the wheel mangled.

Gaby is shaken out of her seat by the impact. As the car rebounds she is thrown upwards, her hands are jerked free of the wheel, and she vanishes with a yell through the gaping hole in the side of the car.

Illya, leaning out of the front passenger window, extricates himself in time to see her empty seat.

Solo, twisting back around, sees the solid rock wall advancing towards them in the flood of the headlights.

Solo yells “Wall!”

Illya lunges into the driver’s footwell – plants one hand hard on the brake. Solo rears forwards between the seats, and grabs the wheel to swerve them away from the wall and the sheer drop to their left. His back and shoulder muscles scream in protest, stiff with cold and being folded up for the long car journey.

The engine gutters and stalls, the brakes groan.

And then time, which has slowed like treacle as the situation unfolds around them, abruptly speeds back up.

Solo is thrown hard against the steering wheel, bruising his ribs and crushing the air out of his lungs. Stars explode in his vision and for a moment he’s blinded by the shock and the bright white pain in his chest.

Below him Illya grunts in pain. The car ploughs into grass and gravel and scrapes against the rock, sliding and spinning full circle as it grinds painfully to a halt.

Behind them the bike engine slows, stutters, idles.

The chassis of the car creaks and whines around them. Napoleon can feel his heartbeat against his front teeth. On the floor below him, Illya hisses “Gaby!”

Solo thinks again of the sheer drop.

Gunshots shatter the rear window, spraying glass through the car. Solo expects to feel the sharp, white heat of a bullet to his back, but instead the shots whizz past him like hornets, one sinking into the dashboard and another passing through the car entirely to lodge in the toughened glass of the windscreen, which crazes on impact.

Illya is in motion, hauling himself across the foot-well and out through the side of the car, hitting the tarmac on one shoulder, gun aimed. His expression is set, and very, very cold. Solo hears shots, and a strangled cry from behind the car.

A tiny pinprick of ice sparkles in his stomach, and he has the feeling that he will look back on this evening – if he lives long enough to do so – as one of the few occasions Illya really frightened him.

He is jarred back to the moment as Illya’s foot grazes his ribs, and Solo realises the Russian is once again in motion, pulling himself completely out of the car and up and away, shaking off the last of the wreckage.

Solo lets out a breath, hunches forward over the wheel: realises abruptly how much pain his back and shoulders are in. He sucks in an unexpectedly large breath, and the chill mountain air burns his lungs and nearly chokes him. The white-light of the headlamps sears his eyes through blue-green mosaic of the windshield.

Painfully, slowly, he clambers out of the car. He stands beside it, bent over, one hand on the roof to support himself. Glass crunches under his feet. He sucks in air but the pain gets worse with each breath, and it takes him a moment to stabilise himself.

The furious pounding of his pulse and the rasp of his breath are loud in his own ears, out of sync with the velvety quiet of the night around him. The only other sound is the quiet whirr of the bike engine.

And then the short, silenced shot.

Solo freezes, inside and out.

Scenes, none of them good, play through his mind. Gaby, Illya, the motorcyclist. Bracing himself mentally, and with his hand still on the car, he takes two cautious steps forward, lifting his head. He looks up and out beyond the rear of the car, to where the red tail lights cast an eerie, crimson light on the tableau in the middle of the road.

The motorcyclist, lying crumpled on the tarmac.

The KGB agent, standing over him, gun aimed straight down at the motorcyclist’s head.

Solo holds his breath.

Illya turns away, holsters his gun and jogs off down the road. Solo stands frozen, fear, adrenaline and the simple pain of breathing curdling in his stomach. Nausea washes over him and he narrowly avoids vomiting into the roadside foliage. A few short, jagged breaths and he’s mercifully over it.

He forgets, sometimes, who Illya is.

Or more accurately, who Illya has been trained to be. Solo rather suspects this is one of Illya’s ‘Russian architect’ moments – a toned-down but still mildly terrifying  version of whatever Moscow Centre would mandate in the same scenario. He tries not to think about what the full, KGB sanctioned response might be. The motorcyclist would be alive to endure it, that much is certain.

He stands, probably longer than he should, contemplating this. His breathing has evened out somewhat by the time he’s filed this little moment away. It occurs to him how cold he is, and how he ought to be helping find Gaby.

He lets go of the car, takes a few tentative steps forward and immediately regrets it, hissing pain through his teeth. The cold air has solidified his muscles, and moving is a tendon-ripping ball of fire that encases his whole upper body. He grabs out for the sweeping rear of the car and gasps for breath.

He thinks of Gaby, tiny, doll-like little Gaby, thrown violently out of a moving vehicle onto the sharp and unforgiving asphalt. Or flying out over the edge and dropping onto the rocky slopes between the steep climbs of the road and tumbling, down, down…

He shakes himself out of it.

He thinks instead of Illya, eerily calm, collected super-spy Illya, who any moment now is going to find the woman he refuses to admit he loves, battered and broken at the side of the road –

Solo hears footsteps ahead of him, and gingerly lifts his head. Illya is approaching, Gaby perched upright, alert and most importantly, _alive_ in his arms. The tail-light glow is deceptive, but Solo thinks she mostly looks angry, rather than injured. Relief, like warm air, floods over him.

Illya stops a foot from the car, apparently in no way inconvenienced by carrying the weight of a whole second person. He regards Solo with something like hardened fury, which is worrying. Gaby glowers down her nose at him, which is upsetting. She has twigs in her hair and a nasty scrape down one arm.

“Much good you are” she snips.

“I have just been… in a very serious… car accident” he wheezes. His ribs beg him to stop.

“If you could hit a barn door at ten paces maybe you wouldn’t have been!”

“Maybe… if you… could… drive worth a damn… you…. wouldn’t have… totalled my… car!”

Solo catches her gaze and they glare furiously at each other. From these few exchanges, Solo interprets that he and Gaby are both very relieved that the other is alive. A bit of back and forth is a sure sign that all is right with the world.

Illya makes a noise of barely controlled, animal fury.

“This. Is. Your. Fault.” the Russian hisses, between clenched teeth.

Solo’s stomach drops.

Illya sweeps Gaby off, presumably to tenderly and delicately tuck her into the passenger seat. Solo remains where he is, freezing to death in August in Switzerland, beside his beloved, battered Aston Martin.

Maybe Gaby really is furious with him. Maybe Illya has decided it’s a waste of good bullets to shoot him. Maybe they will leave him here after all, and claim the Vinciguerra family had the last word.

He doesn’t notice Illya until the man squats down in front of him.

“Get in the car” Illya says. Solo raises his head again to look the Russian in the eye, and sees exasperation, this time, rather than fury. Possibly even kindness, but the light is bad and he is in a good deal of pain.

“Don’t think I… can.”

“I see.”

The next thing he knows, the world is pain, and fire, and upside down. He very nearly blacks out. When he manages to open his eyes, he finds himself once more on the hard back seats, body folded up and howling in protest. He watches, stunned, as Illya resets the driver’s seat, shoves it backwards on its rollers, and settles into it. Shucking his jacket, the Russian hangs it up and arranges it to cover as much of the door-space as possible, shutting out some of the night air. He reaches for the radio.

“Open Channel D.”

~

Solo remembers comparatively little of the rest of the journey to St Moritz. His memory is mostly of unseasonable cold, pain and the fight to keep breathing, flexing his bruised ribs over and over again. The local UNCLE agents – an unlikely retired couple who seem to know Waverley from a previous life – arrive in a small, run-about van, into which Illya decants both his fellow agents before pulling the double doors shut from inside. He settles down beside Gaby on the pretext of giving her his jacket; Solo lies prone on the floor and prays for a warm room with a firm mattress.

~

The safe house is small, clean and offers good respite from the chill breezes of the mountain roads. Having parked their van in the neat little lean-to at the side of their house, the owners seem unfazed by what tumbles out of the back of it. They indicate the stairs in the central hallway of the house, and offer to bring food and fresh bedding.

Solo tries bravely to climb the stairs himself but is forced to admit defeat, and has to wait for Illya to return from carrying Gaby upstairs. In the safety of the inn, the red-lit, winding alpine road is a chilling but distant memory. Solo gives Illya a half smile:

“If you… pick me up… again… I’ll…”

Illya shoots him an icy, withering glance and Solo closes his mouth.

The Russian folds his arms, waiting for Solo to stand, before putting an arm round him and shuffling him up the stairs. It is agony, and Illya is, in truth, lifting him most of the way, but he at least has the kudos of manfully staggering into the shared lounge area under his own power.

Gaby regards them both from the sofa. She has picked up a magazine and is affecting to lounge in a sultry manner, or as sultry a manner as is possible when you have leaves and mud in your hair, dried blood on your face and a broad smear of mud, blood and oil down one side of your clothing.

Credit to her, she’s making a fine go of it.

Solo opens his mouth to say something, and then there is a loud, heavy thud. Solo turns, to see Illya has set his beloved camera – or what’s left of it – down on the small cabinet by the top of the stairs. The metal case has been beaten out of shape, and glass twinkles in shards where the lens used to be.

Solo looks up to meet Illy’s gaze, which is dark, and unpromising.

“In there, no” he says, indicating the small room off the main landing. Solo shuffles into the next room, followed by an increasingly looming Illya. Gaby watches them go, eyebrows raised, magazine forgotten in her hands.

~

Kuryakin drops him into a chair, rests his own hands on the arms and proceeds to loom over the American like a cartoon interrogator.

Napoleon would find it funny, if he could breathe, and if he hadn’t just heard the Russian shoot an injured man in cold blood.

He stares up at Illya’s deceptively big, blue eyes and feels painfully aware with each shallow, fought-for breath that he will be unable to defend himself if Kuryakin has one of his psychotic episodes. Illya’s expression sets multiple icicles of fear dancing in his stomach and for a fleeting moment he knows a fraction of the motorcyclist’s final terror.

He opens his mouth.

“Shut up”.

Solo closes his mouth. He thinks it can hardly be _his_ fault that Gaby fell out of the car, but he knows only too well that Illya won’t see it like that. They tend to have differences of opinion, where Gaby is concerned. Solo has lost count of the number of times he’s been cheerfully patting Gaby on the shoulder and handing her a gun, a grenade, or a set of poisonous blow darts, only to look up and catch Illya’s horrified expression across the room, corridor, or underwater bomb-making facility. Whatever Kuryakin’s official role is on any given mission, he’s always working double-time, running a parallel career as Gaby’s guardian angel.

The effect has worsened – not improved – as the months have worn on. Prevented from anything like a romantic attachment with Gaby by his own moral code – and an apparently frightening set of KGB directives – Illya has instead put all his energy into protecting and worshipping her from afar. As exhausting as it is to witness, at this advanced stage, Solo has rather given up on anything shifting the status quo. On several occasions, it’s occurred to him that the only way out of the deadlock may be for Illya to get himself killed in Gaby’s defence. And, tempting as it might be to bring this on a bit quicker, he will grudgingly admit to liking Illya too much to do so.

But it does mean that they get scenes like this one, with the Russian glaring at him and apparently on the verge of wringing his neck. Illya takes a dim view of people who try and shoot Gaby, and a fairly dim view of men who _ought_ to have gotten the bullet-proof glass installed, and who _ought_ to have had the chassis strengthened and who _ought_ , in all honesty, to have had the good sense not to come back to Italy quite so soon.

Solo steels himself for an unpleasant interview. Illya sucks in a breath through his nose.

“Firstly, you bought ridiculous banana car. Secondly, you did not get it properly set up for missions, like Gaby told you. Thirdly, you go on holiday to place where people want to kill you. Fourthly, your stupid, soft-metal toy car self-destructs itself at drop of hat, and throws Gaby down side of mountain.”

“I would _hardly_ … call that self –”

Illya’s hand moves impossibly quick, from the chair arm to the side of Solo’s face. Solo hears the slap before he feels it, like thunder before lightning. His cheek burns.

“Shut up, I am not finished.”

Solo wheezes.

“What I am saying is you, and your _proklyat, Bog zabroshennyy_ toy-car nearly got all of us killed tonight. Including Gaby.”

Solo cannot help but raise an eyebrow at that unnecessary little addition.

“It’s not my fault that… some maniac ripped… the door off.”

“Western cars have weak hinges. You of all people know this.”

Solo searches Illya’s face for a trace of humour, and finds none. The Russian continues.

“You should have learned lesson and made it strong. Also, after door fell off, wheel fell off.”

“He shot at it!”

“He shot tyre. I checked car – the wheel was in little clump of grass ten feet away. Bullets do not make wheels fall off – that is fault of stupid Americans who are too lazy to go to garage!”

“Maybe someone tampered with it… on the sea crossing?” Solo tries, clutching at straws.

Illya’s eyes flare and the wooden chair creaks in his grip. Solo holds his breath. Illya’s eyes scan his face, as if committing him to memory before wreaking some terrible, permanent damage.

The moment stretches.

At the doorway, Gaby coughs, gently. Illya twists round, and Solo can just make her out over the Russian’s shoulder. She is leaning against the doorframe, trying to look nonchalant while actually keeping her weight off her injured leg.

“If you kill him, we will have a difficult conversation with Waverley when we get back.”

The German and the Russian lock gazes. Solo isn’t party to what transpires between them, but the silence seems endless. Then tense, then taut. Then _interesting_.

Despite himself, Napoleon can feel his eyebrows lifting upwards.

Illya makes a _hmph_ noise, abruptly pushes up off the chair arms. His face has softened, but he’s still frowning.

“Do not let it happen again” he says, curtly. Solo doesn’t dignify this rebuke with an answer, choosing instead to subject Illya to a searching, mischievous look. Illya’s frown deepens, his eyes narrow: _stop it._

“Well, now you’ve decided not to kill each other – I need medical attention. Which of you is going to help me, hmmm?”

No one has poise like Gaby, except perhaps Napoleon himself. He can feel his own eyes widen as if on command; sees the flush blooming on Illya’s cheeks. If it were anyone else, Solo would be across the room and offering courteous assistance. But it is Gaby: and besides he feels that maybe he owes Illya a favour.

He coughs, feebly.

“Think I’ll concentrate on… breathing” he puts real work into the wheezing, which is actually starting to ease off a little. He screws up his face, clutches at his ribs.

Illya is still turned towards him, his face out of Gaby’s view: his expression has shifted from disapproval, through mild annoyance, into restrained panic. He gives Solo an almost pleading look.

“Illya, then” says Gaby, all business. She turns on her heel, calls back over her shoulder “You will have to help me with this dress, my wrist is sprained.”

Solo begins to wonder if Gaby, in a moment of incredible foresight, had actually thrown _herself_ out of the car, in one of the most elaborate seductions ever conceived. Her footsteps pad lightly away, and the door of what he supposes to be the bathroom creaks a little as she opens it down the hall.

Illya has turned to gaze after her retreating back at this little salvo, but once the door shuts behind her, he switches back to look at Solo, who is grinning.

“This is your job.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Yes, it is. You are medical expert.”

Solo wrinkles his nose.

“No I’m not. Besides, you’re the one with proper field agent training.”

“Since when did you require training to be helping women out of their clothes?”

Solo beams at this unexpected attack, and Illya clearly suffers a moment of instant regret.

“Much as I’d like to help the delightful Gaby out of her clothes –”

“Shut up.”

Solo does, although he keeps the smile on his face to annoy Illya. In truth, he doesn’t feel one way or the other about helping Gaby out of her clothes. He views it rather as an aperitif or a glass of whiskey – a nice addition, but not essential to his happiness. Gaby Teller occupies a hitherto unknown category in Napoleon Solo’s catalogue of the female sex, and he sees no reason to try and re-assign her.

Illya breaks into his thoughts – the Russian looks pensive and more than usually dour, now pacing about in the tiny room. He pauses with a hand on his hip and the other pointing down the hall.

“It is not right – I will not go in there.”

Solo, still slumped in the chair, shrugs – immediately regrets it, winces and gasps. Illya drops his arms, gives his American colleague a slightly pitying look. Solo recovers himself, surreptitiously moves in the seat to relax his muscles.

“Why not?” he says, when he’s sure he can speak evenly.

Illya fixes him with a look. It goes on, and on.

Carefully, so as not to disturb his smooth, almost-normal breathing ability, Solo steeples his fingers.

“I see. So because you’d _like_ to help Gaby out of her clothes, you're _not_ going to do as she asks, and help her out of her clothes?”

Illya’s mouth is a firm, flat line. Solo continues.

“All the while, of course, all three of us know that _Gaby_ would _very_ much like you to help her out of her clothes…” he watches Illya for a reaction, sees the Russian’s hands curl into fists at his sides “...and for what it’s worth, at this point I’d be _ecstatic_ if either of you helped the other out of or into anything whatsoever –”

“Be quiet.”

“You _do_ see the problem here, don’t you Peril?”

“ _Yes_ , but you do not, clearly. It is very… bad idea.”

Solo sighs, dramatically, drops his hands. Illya swears under his breath.

“You know it is bad idea. Terrible.”

Solo remains unmoved, affects interest in the wooden wall panels. Glancing at the Russian, he sees Illya’s face is a study in pained indecision.

“Cowboy, I do not ask you for many favours. Go help Gaby, please.”

Solo raises his eyebrows.

“I’m not sure that _is_ a favour.”

Illya sighs, drops his hands from his hips, and sits heavily on the edge of the bed at the side of the room.

“What exactly do you think is going to happen, anyway?”

Illya gives him another look.

“I’m serious.”

“I do not know, that is problem.”

“Interesting.”

“Dangerous.”

“Six of one…”

“Shut up.” Illya rests his head in his hands, elbows perched on his knees.

In the ensuring silence, water starts to run in the bathroom; the guttering hiss of a shower and then the reverberations of water hitting the bathtub, backed by the steady hum of the water pump.

“You know” Solo ventures “I don’t think it would be as terrible as you think.”

Illya doesn’t move, doesn’t seem to react at all. Like a man feeling his way in the pitch dark, Solo presses on.

“I doubt Waverley would say anything, or do anything, come to that.”

Illya’s voice is muffled, behind his hands.

“It isn’t Waverley I am worried about.”

Solo sighs, inwardly. The by now familiar shadow of the KGB once again falls over their conversation. Solo watches his Russian companion carefully. In the last few months, he has learned that the KGB’s best is not, surprisingly, the KGB’s biggest advocate.

The water continues to run down the hall, and the silence goes on in the small spare room.

Illya lifts his head out of his hands.

“Why do you care?” he asks. It isn’t angry, or vicious. If anything it is sad, and confused. It is a depressingly genuine question.

Even Napoleon, who by his own admission has never been burdened with much of a heart, feels this is a question no one should really have to ask. Least of all the man sitting opposite him, who is honest, honourable and, whenever possible, kind. Enemy motorcyclists notwithstanding.

“I’ve saved your life four times” Napoleon says, because he cannot bring himself to put it any other way.

Illya continues to look at him, wary. It bothers Solo, more than it should, that Illya has such trouble accepting these kindnesses from people he’s known and lived with for over a year.

“I’m fond of Gaby” Solo adds, carelessly. Because he is, and he’d prefer that she be happy than sad.

Illya’s face twists painfully, and he opts to look away, staring holes into the pristine, wooden floorboards.

At length, he says “You are a good person, Cowboy”

Solo snorts.

“You were going to kill me a minute ago.”

“I still might” Illya says, evenly.

Napoleon sighs, mostly for effect, but also as a release: he is relieved they’ve navigated some deep, emotional waters with minimal fuss.

“I would not _actually_ have killed you. You and that stupid car are not worth the bother.”

“Good to know” Solo observes, with a smile. Illya, who has been distracted by snatches of Gaby’s voice humming over the running water, drags his eyes away from the door to shoot a sharp glare in Solo’s direction.

“Now, now – like you just said, we’re past all that. Run along now, and help Gaby clean up. I certainly can’t, not in my condition.”

“I think there is nothing wrong with you.”

Solo coughs, pathetically. Illya tips his head back, looks on the verge of saying something unpalatable in Russian, when the bathroom door opens and Gaby’s voice dances down the corridor.

“Um Gottes willen, will one of you come here and help?”

With one last glowering look, Illya stands, and steps down the corridor like a man going to his own execution.

Solo sits back, carefully, in the chair. Not the holiday he had expected, certainly. But quite a satisfactory few days, despite the little incident with the car.

**Author's Note:**

> This began as short ficlet, to expand and explore my own headcanon for the reference to a 'little incident' that I made in 'Napoleon's New Car'. This story didn't so much grow legs, as grow a trust fund, leave school early and set off to travel the world. 
> 
> I also want to give a shout out to [InNovaFertAnimus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InNovaFertAnimus) for running the TMFU Winter Gift Exchange, and to [diadema](https://archiveofourown.org/users/diadema/pseuds/diadema) for pointing me in its direction and suggesting I sign up. I have been having a ball fulfilling my prompts from my lovely prompter!


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